


Unfinished Business

by Likelightinglass



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Gen, Ghost!Snape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-05 03:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17910788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Likelightinglass/pseuds/Likelightinglass
Summary: A little drabble about life after death.Or, Snape the Lonely Ghost





	Unfinished Business

Being a ghost was almost as lonely as it had been being alive. 

If Severus had to guess, he'd suppose the reason he hadn't gone on to some afterlife, for better or for worse, or into a nice deep sleep he'd never managed in life, was that he was far too committed to the goings on of the mortal plane.

Keeping Potter safe had bound him to Hogwarts not only in life but in death too. Making sure Harry got the memories he needed to carry out Albus' grand plan with his dying gasps must have counted for "unfinished business" enough to keep him here. 

He was certainly dead, he could see his mangled body across the room, finally ripped open and bloody in the Shrieking Shack, twenty years past due. He was tired, so tired. Do the dead still get tired?

He slept.

When he awoke his body was gone and it seemed to be summertime. He wondered briefly how much time had passed and who had come to remove his body. It was too clean in the room to have been a wild animal. Or maybe it had been years and the corpse had dissolved into dust, he thought unhappily. He tried to leave the shack to investigate the world, see if the Dark Lord still lived, if anyone he cared about was still alive. But he only managed to move toward the door before exhaustion overtook him again.

He slept.

It went on like this for a few days or maybe a thousand years. His consciousness slowly took on form more recognizable as a ghost, more corporeal. Severus had thought ghosts just were, sprung up fully formed and silvery blue, ready to talk your ear off. But it wasn't the case for him. He wondered if it was because he didn't really want to be here. But then did he want to really be anywhere? Either the world was under the Dark Lord's control and all was lost, or Harry Potter had miraculously defeated him, saved the world, and certainly he and everyone else had forgotten all about his Death Eater, murdering old potions professor. Or still hated him. 

No he didn't want to be anywhere at all. He just wanted to be asleep.

He slept.

His waking moments grew longer, and he was able to move greater distances from the scene of his death as time wore on. He could only discern the passing of time by the changing seasons and the cycle of the moon. He no longer felt hungry or thirsty and the stronger he felt, the more curious he became, and the closer he moved to the castle. 

One day, it must have been deep in winter, he saw children playing, throwing snowballs at each other and laughing. It wasn't anything like the rampant fear he saw in the students during his time as headmaster, with the Carrows terrifying anyone who crossed their path. 

Perhaps this meant good news. Had Potter defeated the Dark Lord? Was Hogwarts, and the wizarding world, safe enough that children could laugh again, and play in the snow?

He was hidden in the trees still. A young witch he did not recognized called the students in for curfew. 

He slept. 

He was able to sneak about in death as easily as he had in life it seemed, for he entered the halls of the school and clung to corners and dark alcoves, spying and not being seen.

He discovered the war had indeed been won. That many had survived, and many had not. He saw Longbottom walking one day toward the Herbology greenhouse, a professor now? It was the first time he was tempted to come out of hiding, give the boy a real fright, he thought wickedly. Then thought better of it and hung back, strangely proud. 

Minerva was Headmistress now. He learned plenty about Hogwarts, about students, about how the Chudley Cannons were doing, but never anything about himself.

He didn't know what he expected, certainly no plaque on the wall, no great stature commemorating his miserable life, but still. He wondered if he existed upstairs as a portrait, and if such a thing were possible if he were a ghost. He wondered if Harry had ever watched the memories, had known what he needed to do or just once again stumbled into greatness through blind luck and Gryffindor brashness. 

He wondered if anyone else had seen the memories. If anyone even cared. If anyone at all knew the truth about how much he'd done for Albus, for Harry, for everyone, in Lily's memory. He wondered if he would ever see Lily again, or if he was separated forever from this plane and the next.

He slept. 

On day he was skulking in a forgotten corner of the dungeons. He nearly tripped (or would have, if he had a real body) over a hunched over little boy. 

Probably a first year, homesick and crying. Severus moved to drift away, but not before the boy caught sight of him. 

"I'm sorry, Mr...er, Mr Ghost." The boy gulped. He sounded do miserable Severus was seized with sudden pity. Hadn't he once (twice, a dozen times) curled into a corner, miserable and alone? And he didn't even stumble upon the pitiful company of a ghost. 

"Quite all right," Severus huffed, before realizing it was the first thing he'd spoken since he died. "What are you going on about then, boy?"

"It's my first year. I can't seem to do anything right, not even get sorted into the right house." Severus glanced at the green trimmed robes and felt a sudden camaraderie. This would have been one of his snakes. If he was still alive.

"My dad," said the boy, "my dad said he named me, my middle name that is, after the bravest man he ever knew. But I don't feel very brave at all."

Severus was quite out of practice at offering anyone any sort of comfort (if he was ever in practice at all) but he felt pity for the boy. "Bravery isn't never being afraid, boy. It's being afraid, very afraid, and doing it anyway." He paused. "Even if no one ever knows but you."

The boy wiped his tears and stood up. For the first time, Severus saw the boys eyes. Green. Green like moss, green just like....

How long had he been dead?

"Thank you," said the boy. "My name is Al, by the way."

Al smiled widely. 

"Albus Severus Potter."


End file.
